NRL player Briton Nikora (Ngāti Maniapoto, Te Arawa, Ngāti Awa) might just possess one of the greatest underdog-makes-it-big stories.
"I remember a couple of teachers who said: 'You'd better listen because you'll never play in the NRL'," he said in an interview with Te Ao With Moana's Hikurangi Kimiora Jackson.
"There would've been heaps of people that doubted me. Just coming up in the grades, just obviously not making like teams.”
It might shock some but Nikora, who was selected for the Kiwis after just 12 games in the NRL and just recently hit the 100 games milestone, almost gave up on his NRL dream.
His mother, Tangiwai Nikora, recalls how Briton was constantly overlooked by selectors coming through the grades.
Briton's parents, Tangiwai and Anthony Nikora. Photo / file
“When Briton first started playing league, he was playing for Parkwood Sharksin the B team there. And then Keebra, couldn't make the A squad. Then he went to Nerang and that sort of went pear-shaped.
"Briton gave up and walked away from the game, he walked away from the sport. Just didn't wanna play.”
Nikoranever saw himself as the biggest or the fastest. The disappointment of missing out on teams fell heavily on him.
“The NRL just seemed too far gone. I’d just finished school and didn’t make any teams or anything like that.”
But he was thrown one last chance to make a top team and this time it was with the Cronulla Sharks under- 20s team. At an open trial at their stadium, hundreds of players signed up. And Nikora stood out.
“After the game I thought, like, surely I could be on here. I got the call. And they told me that they wanted to sign me for two years with the twenties team.”
'Give it a crack'
Nikora’s dream of making the NRL was one step closer. But things quickly turned difficult again. In his first year with the under-20s, the team went on to play 25 matches. Nikora was selected to play only one of those games. He also faced another challenge – living away from his parents.
Brought up in Tauranga and schooled at Te Kura o Matapihi, Nikora moved to the Gold Coast with his parents when he was 10 years old. When he signed with the Sharks under-20s team, he had to pack his bags and move to Sydney - on his own.
“That was probably the toughest time of my career, obviously, moving away from family down to Sydney, not knowing anyone. And then you just play twenties, you work. There were times where I wanted to just go back home. I’d go back up to the Goldie every time I had a bye or I had the weekend off, I’d go up there and just try and stay there and not come back.
"But Mum and Dad would tell me to fly back and just give it a crack.”
Briton Nikora Te Ao With Moana's Hikurangi Jackson at Shark Park, Australia. Photo / File.
His parents wanted Nikora to share his story in the hope it could help other young athletes to keep on going when things get tough.
“There are thousands of those stories when they just walked away, you know? A lot of it is about them missing their family,” his father, Anthony Nikora, says.
However with good whānau support - and a never-give-up attitude - things turned around for Nikora. He ended up a star in his second year with the under twenties.
And the rest, you could say… is history.
At just 25 years old, the likelihood of Nikora reaching the 200-game milestone is looking promising.
The Cronulla Sharks play the Warriors this Sunday in Tāmaki Makaurau.